The History of GovernmentThe History of GovernmentThe Origins of Government

Government is one of humanity's oldest and most important institutions. From earliest times, some kind of government has been a vital part of every society. This is because every society needs people to make and enforce decisions that affect conduct within the group. The term government also refers to the process of exercising power in a group.

The first humans started out as nomads. They were hunters and gatherers, traveling from place to place in order to follow cattle during seasonal changes to where the land was fertile. Nomadic life produced the first stage of government called anarchy. Anarchy means no government. There were no laws or rules except for the laws of nature.

As individual hunters married and formed families, a new type of government emerged. The first real government began with family rule. Over time families grew larger and larger until a tribe or clan was formed. In tribal life, the oldest and wisest rules with respect from the younger less experienced members of the family.

Very early in human history, people or tribes decided to settle in one place so that they would be able to build permanent homes. These permanent settlements grew into villages and later into civilizations. Small civilizations formed a system of government that is known as city-states, which was the earliest form of communism and socialism. This has been taught by political philosophers like Karl Marx to be the only possibility for a true Utopia to exist. In these city-states there was no such thing as ownership of property. There also were no classes among the people. Everyone was seen to be equal as long as they contributed to the community and everyone shared in the communities’ goods and products as they needed.

Around the year 2000 B.C., civilizations grew and began expanding out into new territories. They came in contact with other prosperous civilizations and often times these meetings would lead to conflicts and even war. Battles could erupt for reasons such as: the desire for others’ goods, resources, and even over religious beliefs. These battles introduced the next evolution in governmental history, which is known as Survival of the Strongest. In this form of government, the civilization was not ruled by the oldest and wisest or by the entire community. The person who could defeat all others by sheer force in order to take over ruled the civilization.

Survival of the Strongest quickly gave way to the next evolution in government called Divine Right. The theory of Divine Right comes from a religious belief that the power to rule comes from god. In ancient times, it was customary that anyone could challenge the king’s right to rule, and in so doing he would also be challenging the authority of that king’s god. The people

believed that the winner’s god must be the greater god. The victor would then be king, and any actions he took were not to be questioned. To question the king, believed to be divinely appointed by god, would bring eternal judgment by god on that individual. The Divine Right Theory also related to conquering other civilizations. The victorious civilization was believed to have a greater god then that of the loser. When one civilization had taken over another they would generally turn the people into servants and slaves. This created a large class system with rulers and workers.

Ancient CivilizationsSeveral civilizations developed independently in

various parts of the world. The first one arose in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in the Middle East named Mesopotamia. Other civilizations developed in the Nile Valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley in what are now Pakistan and northwestern India, and the Huang He Valley in China. The locations of these settlements were always on the banks of major rivers. The river provided almost all of the needs that a society needed to survive. First, it provided a constant source of food and fresh water. Secondly, the river provided means of transportation. Finally, the river provided protection from invaders. The people developed systems of writing and new forms of government, made advances in science and technology, and excelled in crafts and art. These four civilizations are also referred to as empires.

The First Set of LawsThe first empire, which was in Mesopotamia, is

known as Babylon. New and lasting developments in government came from the Babylonians. The greatest development was the idea of written codes or laws. This gave predictability to punishments rather than having arbitrary rule by the king. A Babylonian king named Ur-Nammu assembled the earliest known code about 2100 B.C. Other Babylonian rulers produced codes during the

following centuries. A king named Hammurabi drew up the most complete and best known of these codes during in 1780 B.C. The Code of Hammurabi, like the earlier ones, consisted mainly of a long list of rules (282 rule to be exact), to settle specific types of cases. The

code laid down the law for such matters as the

unfaithfulness of a wife, the theft of a farm animal, and the faulty work of a house builder. Many of the punishments were harsh by today's standards. For example, a son found guilty of striking his father had his hand cut off.

The Social Pyramid The second largest empire was Egypt. Another

development of government, the social pyramid, became the center of Egyptian society and can be observed in many societies today. The Egyptians developed one of the largest social pyramids in history. In ancient social pyramids true class systems were observed. All people were born into the class that they would remain in until death. No one could move up in class unless appointed by the Pharaoh himself. The classes in Egypt consisted of the Pharaoh, Nobles and Priests, Soldiers, Scribes, Merchants, Artisans, Farmers, Slaves and Servants. Today’s American society has narrowed down to only three classes, the upper, middle, and lower classes, which are economic in nature.

Religious LawFrom about 1000 to 400 B.C., the Israelites of

the Middle East assembled their religious and social laws into a code. The code reflected the teachings of Moses, a great Israelite leader of the 1200's B.C., and so it is often called the Mosaic Code or the Law of Moses. The Mosaic Code stressed moral principles. It became a key part of the first books of the Hebrew Bible and later of

the Christian Bible. According to the Bible, God gave the part of the code known as the Ten Commandments to Moses in 1290 B.C. The commandments therefore have had enormous influence on the moral content of the law in Western civilization.

The Influence of Ancient Greece

Most scholars regard the ancient Greeks as thefounders of both Western law and Western civilization. Unlike earlier civilizations, the civilization of ancient Greece made the law a clearly human institution. Before the Greeks, most people believed that only gods and goddesses had the power to make laws. The gods and goddesses gave the laws to certain chosen leaders. These leaders passed them on to the people. Like earlier peoples, the ancient Greeks believed that gods and goddesses required human beings to obey the law. But

the Greeks also believed that human beings have the power to make laws--and to change them as the need arises. The Greek city-state (polis – Latin for politics) of Athens became the chief center of this development.

In the 590's B.C., the ruling council of Athens authorized a high-ranking official named Solon to reform the city's legal and political system. Solon made the Athenian assembly representative and increased its lawmaking powers. In about 460 B.C., Pericles became leader of the popular party and the most powerful person in the state. He made many changes as head of the state. Public officials had never been paid before, but Pericles introduced salaries, first for the elected officials called archons, and later for all officers. According to Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, as many as 20,000 people were on the public payroll. In 457 B.C., Pericles made his greatest reform. The common people were allowed to serve in any state office. Athens became the most successful democracy of ancient Greece during the 400's B.C. Every male Athenian citizen had the right to serve permanently in an assembly, which passed laws and determined government policies. They granted all citizens the right to vote on government policies, hold political office, and serve on a jury. The Athenian assembly was elected by a secret ballot. The assembly also elected Athenian generals. Each year, the citizens drew lots to select a council of 500 men. This council ran the day-to-day business of government and prepared the bills that the assembly debated and voted on. Jurors were also chosen by lot. The Athenian jury constituted the first trial by jury in history.

The Greeks believed strongly in the importance of law. They considered respect for the law to be the mark of the good citizen. The great Athenian philosopher and teacher Socrates became the supreme example of this belief. The court sentenced Socrates to death in 399 B.C. for teaching Athenian youths to question the authority of the law. Socrates knew that he was innocent. But he accepted his sentence in order to show his respect for the law.

Ancient Philosophy: Governmental FormsDuring the 300's B.C., such Greek political

thinkers as Aristotle and Plato again stressed the idea of rule by laws. Aristotle classified governments by the number of rulers and by certain principles under which they operated. Today, various forms of government, including democracy and communism, differ mainly by the degree in which the people participate in them. Aristotle, sometimes called the father of political science, suggested that all governments fall into one of three categories: (1) rule by one person, (2) rule by a few

people, and (3) rule by many people. Within each category, rule could be exercised for the benefit of all and be "virtuous," or for the benefit of only the rulers and be "corrupt." When one person ruled for the good of all, Aristotle taught, the government was a monarchy. A corrupt monarchy was a tyranny, whose leader ruled to satisfy an appetite for power or wealth. Government by a few people, for the good of all, was an aristocracy. When a small group of people ruled to increase their own power or wealth, the government was an oligarchy. Aristotle called rule by many people, for the good of all, polity. In a polity, a large number of citizens could rule for the benefit of the rest. Democracy was Aristotle's name for corrupt rule by the majority, and it was to be feared as a dangerous kind of mob rule.

The Influence of Ancient Rome Ancient law reached its peak under the Romans.

Roman law included all the main branches of public and private law that exist today. In fact, the scientific classification of the law began with the Romans. The Romans designed their laws not only to govern the people of Rome but also to build and hold together a vast empire. By the early A.D. 100's, the Roman Empire included much of Europe and the Middle East and most of northern Africa.

A series of kings ruled ancient Rome at the beginning of its history. Each king was advised by a Senate, which resembled that of many countries today, made up of the heads of Rome's leading families. Citizens met in assemblies to vote on decisions made by the king and the Senate.

The Roman Republic was established in 509 B.C., after Roman nobles overthrew the king. Two elected officials called consuls headed the government. The consuls shared power, but either consul could veto the actions of the other. A consul served for only a year.

The Senate was the most powerful government body of the Roman Republic. The Senate conducted foreign policy, passed decrees (official orders), and handled the government's finances. Senators, unlike consuls, served for life. At first, all senators were patricians—that is, members of Rome's oldest and richest families. Patricians controlled not only the Senate but also the assembly that elected the consuls and other important officials. All the rest of Rome's citizens, who were called plebeians, had little political influence.

To obtain political rights, plebeians formed their own assembly, the Concilium Plebis, and elected leaders called tribunes. Largely through the work of the tribunes, plebeians gradually gained the same political rights as the patricians. In time, a new and larger assembly, the Comitia Tributa, developed. It represented both patricians and plebeians, but plebeians largely controlled the assembly.

The Roman Republic lasted nearly 500 years, until 27 B.C. It combined strong heads of state, a respected Senate of senior statesmen, and assemblies

where the people could be heard. For centuries afterward, historians and political scientists viewed the Roman Republic as a model of balanced government.

The Romans published their first known code of law in 451 B.C. This code, called the Laws of theTwelve Tables, set down accepted practices in written form. It set down the chief customary laws of the Roman people in a form that was easy to remember. For hundreds of years, Roman boys had to memorize the code as part of their schoolwork. Roman law remained flexible. It depended on the interpretations of skilled lawyers and judges.

The special rights of Roman citizens included owning property, making contracts and wills, and suing for damages. As the Roman government expanded its rule, Roman citizens traveled to other lands to fight wars, rule territories, and conduct business. They kept all their special rights when they traveled anywhere in the Roman Empire. The government also began to grant Roman citizenship to people who had never lived in Rome. In A.D. 212, the government granted Roman citizenship to most people throughout the empire, except for slaves.

For many years, Romans and non-Romans within the empire were governed under different sets of laws. Roman citizens were governed under the jus civile (civil law). The Romans developed a special set of laws, called the jus gentium (law of the nations), to rule the peoples they conquered. They based these laws on principles of justice that they believed applied to all people. Such principles are known as natural law.

The belief in natural law also led to the idea that non-Romans within the empire should have the same rights as citizens. In A.D. 212, the Romans granted Roman citizenship to

most of the peoples they had conquered, except slaves. The jus civile then became the law of the entire empire.

However, the principles of natural law set down in the jus gentium remained part of Roman law. These principles were important to future generations because they led to the belief in equal rights for all citizens. But hundreds of years passed before people fully developed the principles of equality that were outlined by the Romans. Once the principles had been developed, they contributed to the building of democratic governments in the United States, France, and many other countries.

The Middle Ages

In 395, the Roman Empire split into two parts--the West Roman Empire and the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. The West Roman Empire, which had its capital in Rome, fell to invading Germanic tribes in the late 400's. The empire's fall marked the start of the 1,000-year period known as the Middle Ages. The East Roman Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople

(now Instanbul), escaped the invasions. In 527, Justinian I became the ruler of the eastern empire, and his great code of Roman law was mainly enforced there. In Western Europe, most of the legal and cultural institutions developed by the Romans gradually died out.

However, Roman law survived in the West as the basis for canon law--the legal system developed by the Roman Catholic Church. Most Europeans during the Middle Ages were Catholics, and so canon law had a powerful influence on their lives. Christianity taught that everyone is equal before God. This teaching promoted the democratic ideal of brotherhood among people. Christianity also introduced the idea that Christians are citizens of two kingdoms—the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. It held that no state can demand absolute loyalty from its citizens because they must also obey God and His commandments. During the Middle Ages (A.D. 400's to the 1500's), the conflict between these two loyalties helped lay the foundation for constitutional government.

FeudalismIn the A.D. 400's, Germanic tribes conquered

the West Roman Empire and divided it into many kingdoms. The Germanic peoples—called barbarians by the Romans—were loyal only to their tribal chiefs or to their families. Thus, the strong central and local governments of the Romans disappeared. In addition, barbarian customs replaced many Roman laws. Such changes and further invasions resulted in general disorder and constant warfare in the years following the barbarian conquest of the West Roman Empire. Feudalism helped establish order in Europe under these conditions. Under feudalism, people owed allegiance to individual lords rather than to a central government.

The word feudal comes from a Latin term for fief. The fief was the estate or land granted by a lord in return for a vassal's loyalty and service. Some fiefs were large enough to support one knight. Others were great

provinces of a kingdom, such as the province of Normandy in France. The church, which owned large fiefs, was also part of the feudal system.

A lord enforced the law in his territory and granted protection to the people who served in his armies and who lived and worked on his land. Both the lord and his subjects, called vassals, were aristocrats. The lord gave vassals land in return for military and other services. The lord and the vassals were bound through ceremonies and oaths to be faithful to each other and to observe their obligations. The peasants had no part in such arrangements.

A lord could not demand more than the law allowed. The people thus had a right to refuse any demands by their lord that went beyond the limits of the law. Europeans later used this principle to resist monarchs who claimed too much power. The principle thus played an important role in the struggle for democracy in Europe.

The Social ContractDuring the 1200's, the feudal system of

lords and vassals entered a period of major decline, and ruling kings and their governments grew increasingly powerful. Under feudal law, nobles called barons received land in return for military and other services to the king. Law and custom established the barons' duties and what was expected of the king. But there was no actual control over the king's power. When John became

king in 1199, he exercised his power even more forcefully than earlier kings. He demanded more military service than they did. He sold royal positions to the highest bidders. He demanded larger amounts of money without

consulting the barons, which was contrary to feudal custom. He decided cases according to his wishes, and people who lost cases in his court had to pay crushing penalties.

English barons and church leaders began to express dissatisfaction with John's rule early in his reign. Their unhappiness grew and they forced him to sign a set of articles on June 15, 1215. Four days later, the articles were engrossed (written out in legal form) as a royal charter. Copies of the charter were distributed throughout the kingdom. In the charter, the king granted many rights to the English aristocracy. The ordinary English people gained little. The charter was named the Magna Carta, which in Latin means Great Charter.

The Magna Carta contained 63 articles, most of which pledged the king to uphold feudal customs. One article says that the king will not sell, deny, or delay justice. Another says that no freeman shall be imprisoned, deprived of property, exiled, or destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers (equals) or by the law of the land. The idea of due process of law, including trial by jury, developed from these articles. In John's time, however, there was no such thing as trial by jury in criminal cases.

The charter tried to make the king keep his promises by establishing a council of barons. If the king violated the charter and ignored warnings of the council, it could raise an army to force the king to live by the

charter's provisions. But these measures were unsuccessful.

Many years later, the Magna Carta became a model for those who demanded democratic government and individual rights for all. The Magna Carta is recognized as the first attempt at a Social Contract, which is an agreement between a government and the governed that in exchange for protection and rights, the governed will be loyal to the government. In its own time, the greatest value of Magna Carta was that it limited royal power and made it clear that even the king had to obey the law.

The Renaissance and the Reformation

The great cultural reawakening called the Renaissance spread throughout Europe during the 1300's, 1400's, and 1500's. A new spirit of individual thought and independence developed. It influenced political thinking and hastened the growth of democracy. People began to demand greater freedom in all areas of life.

The new independence of the individual found religious expression in the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation emphasized the importance of individual conscience. During the early 1500's, Martin Luther, a leader of the Reformation, opposed the Roman Catholic Church as an intermediary between God and people. A number of Protestant churches were established during the period. Some of these churches practiced the congregational form of government, which had a democratic structure. During the 1500's, both Catholics and Protestants defended the right to oppose absolute monarchy. They argued that the political power of earthly rulers comes from the consent of the people.

Natural Rights The idea that people have certain rights that

cannot be taken away probably began thousands of years ago with the theory of natural law. This theory states that a natural order exists in the universe because nature or God creates all things. Everything has its own qualities and is subject to the rules of nature to achieve its full potential. According to this theory, anything that detracts from a person's human qualities, or prevents their full achievement, violates natural law.

Natural law had always stressed the duties over the rights of government and individuals. But in the late 1600's, natural law began to emphasize natural rights. This change was brought about largely by the writings of the English philosopher John Locke.

Locke argued that governmental authority depends on the people's consent. According to Locke, people originally lived in a state of nature with no restrictions on their freedom. Then they came to realize that confusion would result if each person enforced his

or her own rights. People agreed to live under a common

government, but not to surrender their "rights of nature" to the government. Instead, they expected the government to protect these rights, especially the rights of life, liberty, and property. Locke's ideas of limited government and natural rights became part of the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791).

The Mayflower CompactThe Mayflower Compact was the first

agreement for self-government ever put in force in America. On Nov. 21 (then Nov. 11), 1620, the ship Mayflower anchored off Cape Cod, Mass. The Pilgrim leaders persuaded 41 male adults aboard to sign the Mayflower Compact, and set up a government in Plymouth Colony that would be a local representative democracy while still giving loyalty to the King of England.

The English Bill of RightsBy the 1700's, several European countries had

become nation-states with strong central governments. One of the oldest national governments, the British Parliament, developed before the 1000's from a council of nobles and high-ranking clergy that advised the early kings. This council helped the king decide matters of government policy and made laws. By the mid-1300's, it had become an enlarged parliament that included elected representatives who met separately from the nobles and clergy. By the late 1700's, Parliament had gained nearly total control over the monarch.

The English revolution of 1688 finally established the supremacy of Parliament. John Locke, the philosopher of the revolution, declared that final authority in political matters belonged to the people. The government's main purpose, he said, was to protect the lives, liberties, and property of the people.

In 1689, Parliament presented to King William III and Queen Mary a declaration that became known as the Bill of Rights. It stands with Magna Carta and the Petition of Right as the legal guarantees of English liberty. The Bill of Rights listed certain rights that were the "true, ancient, and indubitable rights and liberties of the people" of the English kingdom. It settled the succession to the throne, and limited the powers of the king in such matters as taxation and keeping up a standing army. The right known as habeas corpus was one of the chief common-law safeguards of personal freedom. Habeas corpus is a Latin term meaning you are ordered to have the body. As developed in English common law, habeas corpus means that a person cannot be held in prison without the consent of the courts. The

Founding Fathers of the United States considered this right so essential to human liberty that they wrote it into the Constitution (Article I, Section 9).

Political Philosophy

French contributions to democracy were made in the 1700's by such political thinkers as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Their writings helped bring about the French Revolution, which began in 1789. Montesquieu argued that political freedom requires the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government. Voltaire spoke out against government invasion of individual rights and freedoms. Rousseau declared in his book The Social Contract (1762) that people "have a duty to obey only legitimate powers." The only rightful rulers, he added, were, ultimately, the people.

The Thirteen Colonies In the early 1600's, the English king began

granting charters for the purpose of establishing colonies in America. The charters went to companies of merchants and to individuals called proprietors. The merchants and proprietors were responsible for recruiting people to settle in America and, at first, for governing them. By the mid-1700's, most of the settlements had been formed into 13 British colonies. Each colony had a governor and legislature, but each was under the ultimate control of the British government.

The 13 colonies stretched from what is now Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. They included the New England Colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire in the

far north; the Middle Colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; the two Chesapeake Colonies of Virginia and Maryland, along Chesapeake Bay; and the Southern Colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in the far south.

The 13 English colonies began as either charter colonies or proprietary colonies. Charter colonies had a charter granted by the English monarch to stockholders. Proprietary colonies were owned by an individual proprietor or by a small group of proprietors under a charter from the monarch. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia were founded as charter colonies. The other nine colonies were established as proprietary colonies.

In 1624, the English monarch began to change the colonies into royal colonies. Such colonies were under the direct control of the monarch. By the end of the colonial period, only Connecticut and Rhode Island remained charter colonies, and just Delaware, Maryland,

and Pennsylvania were still proprietary. The other eight colonies had become royal colonies.

Colonial government. All the colonies had a governor, a legislature, a governor's council, and a court system. In royal colonies, the monarch appointed the governor. In proprietary colonies, the proprietors did so. In the charter colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the voters elected the governor.

Colonial legislatures debated issues and elected officers to preside over their meetings. They passed laws and could tax the people. The governor could veto any laws passed by the legislature. The governor also had the right to call elections and to call together and dismiss the legislature.

The British Parliament passed some laws for the colonies, especially ones regulating trade. It also created a postal system and certain courts for the colonies. British officials reviewed all laws passed by colonial legislatures in royal and proprietary colonies. These officials could disallow—that is, reject—laws that they considered to be contrary to English law. Only about 5 percent of colonial laws were disallowed. However, even these few acts of disallowance caused resentment in the colonies. In some cases, decisions of colonial courts were appealed to England.

Toward IndependenceDuring the 10-year period prior to the adoption

of the Declaration, American leaders repeatedly challenged the British Parliament's right to tax the colonies. Three efforts by Parliament to raise taxes provoked heated protest from the colonists. These efforts were the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, the Tea Act of 1773, and the Intolerable Acts of 1774.

On Sept. 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to plan common measures of resistance. All the colonies except Georgia sent representatives to the Congress. The delegates supported the view held by most colonists—that they could not be ruled by a Parliament in which they were not represented. The delegates to the First Continental Congress hoped the United Kingdom's King George III and his ministers would free the colonies from the Intolerable Acts.

In 1775, most colonists still did not favor declaring themselves independent of the British Crown. Such a declaration would cut the last bond linking the colonies to the United Kingdom. The delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which assembled on May 10, 1775, continued to hope the king would help resolve the colonists' differences with Parliament. In July, the colonists sent a final petition to the United Kingdom declaring their loyalty to the king and asking him to

address their complaints. But the king ignored their request and declared the colonies to be in rebellion.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War had begun in April 1775, when British troops clashed with colonial militia at Lexington, Massachusetts, and nearby Concord. In January 1776, the political writer Thomas Paine published Common Sense. This electrifying pamphlet attacked the concept of monarchy and made a powerful case for the independence of the American Colonies.

As the fighting intensified, hopes of reconciliation with the United Kingdom faded. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution to the Second Continental Congress stating that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States ..." After several days of

debate, the Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The committee gave the task to Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who completed the work in about two weeks. Two other members, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Adams of Massachusetts, made a few minor changes.

The Declaration of IndependenceOn July 2, the Congress approved the Lee

resolution. The delegates then began to debate Jefferson's draft. A few passages, including one condemning King George for encouraging the slave trade, were removed. Most other changes dealt with style. On July 4, the Congress adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. American democracy took root in traditions brought to North America by the first English colonists. The Pilgrims, who settled in Massachusetts in 1620, joined in signing the Mayflower Compact to obey "just and equal laws." The American Revolution began more than 150 years later, in 1775. The colonists wanted self-government and no taxation without representation.

The Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress in 1776, is a classic document of democracy. It established human rights as an ideal by which government must be guided.

When the American colonists declared their independence from England in 1776, they based their claims partly on the ancient Greek and Roman ideas of natural law. These ideas had been developed in detail by various French philosophers of the 1700's, such as Claude Helvetius and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The French had especially promoted the idea that the natural law gives all people equal rights. The U.S. Declaration of Independence echoed this idea in the famous phrase "... all men are created equal [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

American DemocracyMost of the Founding Fathers distrusted the

Athenian version of direct democracy. They wanted to establish a republic because they feared that giving the people too much power would lead to mob rule. For this reason, the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States adopted a system of dividing power between the federal government and the states. They also provided that the federal powers be divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. In addition, they provided that the President be elected by an electoral college rather than by the direct vote of the people.